And if you’re thinking about making your own huppah, take a look at Sew Jewish, a collection of 18 Jewish sewing patterns and projects. It comes out soon…and includes instructions for sewing a huppah canopy! Get details at SewJewish.com…

Kelly Faircloth over at Jezebel, who got married a month ago, recommends limiting the number of options you consider when making wedding planning decisions:

…Do not let yourself get bogged down in any single decision. I spent weeks scouring New York City for wedding shoes and a hair comb. My mistake was ever considering more than five options in the first place.

If, as you set up your wedding website and mull over your wedding hashtag, the social media tasks on your wedding planning list seem like they’re taking up too much of your time, you should know that by doing this all yourself, you’re saving $3,000. That’s the price W Hotels in New York puts on your work, and they’re happy to take those social media tasks off your hands for just that fee.

W Hotels now offers their wedding clients the services of a Social Media Concierge who will set up your wedding website, create a hashtag and encourage your guests to use it, and post Vine videos for you. They’ll manage your Pinterest boards. They will even live tweet your wedding.

Cake and mason jars — two wedding staples that come together to create a lot of fun. You can find recipes for different flavors of jar cupcakes around, but Sarah Jill offers one of the most colorful and simple versions. Six-ounce mason jars would yield a nice serving size for a backyard wedding. Thanks, Sarah Jill!

Thought you’d like to see the list of trousseau items you’d probably pick up if you got married in 1960. Hats, gloves, formal wrap — Yes, I can see the gals of Mad Men opening a suitcase with just these items.

The list comes from the 1960 brochure of wedding tips from Miss America’s Wedding Invitation Line. You can see their recommendations for what to wear to your wedding here.

For lots of folks a wedding isn’t a wedding without a display stand stacked with macaroons, those tasty meringue cookies popularized by the French – and which they call macarons. But if you’re having a Jewish wedding, how about serving your guests a distinctly Jewish macaroon? After all, macaroons enjoy an exalted status in the canon of Jewish confections, perfected by generations of Jewish home bakers for the Passover holiday.

Dan Cohen explicates fifty variations of the cookie in his newly released cook book, The Macaroon Bible.

Among the macaroon recipes included: cappuccino, salted caramel, and chocolate cherry. Most of the recipes are dairy, with one vegan/parve alternative.

Here’s a DIY wedding project that packs a big punch. Favor bags made from fabric ribbon beat out plain organza bags hands down, and they’re easy to whip up. When you incorporate them into your table setting, they double as decorations for your tablescape. And, OK, we’re extra partial to this fab idea because it comes from our new sister site, Sew Jewish. Get the instructions.

Once you cut ribbon, the threads at the end can fray and look messy. Packing up the ribbon to get it to your wedding venue and tying the ribbon to your huppah can make the fraying worse. That’s not a fun look for your wedding. But you can prevent stray threads and keep your ribbons looking neat by sealing the ends with liquid fray check, which you can find it at fabric and craft stores.

After cutting the end of the ribbon neatly, apply fray check and let it dry. After it’s dry, trim the ribbon again to leave a strip of fray check that is no more than about 1/8″ (3mm) wide.

This season at Huppahs.com we’re shipping an unprecedented number of wedding huppah rentals directly to restaurants. For couples planning small weddings, restaurants make great wedding venues. Decorating needs are minimal, and the caterer is already on site.

But space can be limited. If you’re using a huppah, you don’t want one that takes up valuable dance floor space and you don’t want to hold up the party while a crew dismantles it.

As I wrote recently on Twitter, for a small venue like a restaurant a hand-held huppah makes the perfect solution. It can be moved in and out of the ceremony space quickly and easily. Having people hold the huppah poles enhances the sense of intimacy of a small wedding. And for especially intimate spaces, Huppahs.com offers the option of short, 7-foot poles, which are a great alternative to generally taller, stand-alone huppahs.

Well, this is big news! Huppahs.com now makes two of its popular wedding huppah canopies available to rent without poles. Perfect if you already have poles and are looking for a beautiful, high-quality canopy.

The Simplicity Canopy, pictured above, is fashioned from a high-quality bridal satin. The fabric’s subtle sheen and substantial hand create a simply elegant canopy that works wonderfully in any wedding venue.

The Ivory Silk Canopy, shown in detail at the right, has the refined texture characteristic of 100% dupioni silk. The light ivory color cultivates a warm sophistication.

Get more details and find out if these canopies are available for your wedding date at Huppahs.com.

Love has finally brought together two wedding trends that were destined to fall into each others arms: boho chic and shot luges. My ice sculptor brother put me on to the current popularity of the iconic Love sculpture as a shot luge for weddings, and this version was created by Max Zuleta, a member of the Chicago-based ice sculpture collective Art Below Zero.

The sculpture is a cool riff on on the pop art image created by Robert Indiana and adopted as a symbol of the bohemian, hippie culture in the 1960s. The shot luge, I think, is a more contemporary development. They make a great couple, no?

Have you ever noticed that when you cut a strawberry in half it looks like a heart? That alone should earn strawberries a place in your Valentine’s Day or summer wedding menu. Then there’s the flavor. Infuse cupcakes with that sweet strawberry goodness by simply adding a cup of pureed fresh strawberries to boxed vanilla cake mix batter. Top with a strawberry glaze.

Take a look at that cupcake: perfect for a shabby chic, farm, or picnic theme, or any summer backyard wedding reception.

In honour of the bridal pair an old Persian custom was followed in Talmudic times, and nuts and wheat were cast about the path in which they strode. Barley was sown in a flower vase a few days before the wedding as an emblem of fertility, and was thrown over the young couple, as in modern times.

Modern times? Well, if that’s not any modern times you’re familiar with, that’s because these descriptions of nearly forgotten Jewish wedding customs were written circa 1896, by Israel Abrahams for his book, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages. Thanks, Mr. Abrahams.

The craft of bartending has come into its own, and Martha Stewart endorsed jello shots for weddings. It’s shaping up to be the summer of love and the summer of serious libations. So let’s get this wedding reception started. What we need: ice carvings. Like the Trojans flanking the ice bar in the photo. My brother Bill carved them for a charity event last year. The helmets are shot luges.

It is “fairly common” for non-Jewish couples to use a chupah, or chupah-like structure, as part of the “décor” for the wedding ceremony. For these couples, she said, “The wedding canopy still represents a sacred space where they exchange vows.” But Christians want something beyond the standard floral arrangements that flank the altar. “By using a chupah,” Soujourner said, “they elevate their ceremony and make it special.”

From event planner Melisa Imberman:

Non-Jews who use a chupah, she said, are often thinking about how their wedding pictures will look “They may not know what it’s called or be aware that it’s a Jewish concept,” she said. “They see a picture of a wedding arch in a magazine or on a website, and they notice that it frames the bride and groom, creating a focal point for the ceremony.”

It makes sense. With so many couples getting married in non-traditional spaces like parks, museums, and bistros, a huppah is a way to make a ceremony space feel special and look pretty.

You don’t need to be involved with wedding planning very long before you run into quotes for the average wedding cost, which these days hovers around $27,000 to $28,000. Turns out, most couples spend far less than that. As Slate’s Will Oremus explains, a small number of mega-expensive weddings skews the average upward pretty heftily. The typical American couple actually spends something like $15,000.

Oremus’ takeaway:

Once you realize that the typical American wedding costs closer to $15,000 than $30,000, it becomes that much easier to say “no” to things you don’t need and embrace the expenses that are important to you.

That’s one of my favorite lines, at least the way I remember the line, from the 1950 movie “Father of the Bride.” The bride-to-be, played by Elizabeth Taylor, says it to her father, played by Spencer Tracy. They’re meeting with the wedding planner, and Dad is just not keeping up. You’ve probably seen the 1991 remake of the movie with Steve Martin as the father. But the original is less silly and more, well, charming.

As in the modern version, Dad ends up in the middle of planning for a wedding that is bigger than he counted on and nearly more than he can wrap his head around. But instead of the bevy of swans that trip up Steve Martin, the symbolic over-the-top extravagance here is a tiered wedding cake, which, as Elizabeth Taylor’s line seems to indicate, was a relatively new addition to the list of wedding must-haves. It’s a reminder that a lot of today’s wedding expectations arose over a fairly short span of human history, and that a lot of must-haves are things people didn’t even know they needed just a couple of generations ago.

Oh, but that wedding dress. Who would begrudge Elizabeth Taylor that dress? See it in action in the official movie trailer, below.

Here’s to fathers.

(Photo: Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy in a promotional image for the 1950 film ”Father of the Bride” by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons | Video: “Father of the Bride” trailer, YouTube.)

Small weddings don’t need big dessert buffets, we pointed out in an earlier post of 10 great wedding cake dessert pairings. One carefully chosen food to accompany the wedding cake makes the dessert course special. Here are four more awesome wedding dessert duos:

This week, Bridal Guide published a great list of 5 budget-friendly alternatives to an open bar. The options involve finding inspired ways to narrow down the types of alcohol you serve at your wedding so that you can avoid the cost of stocking a full bar. Examples: Team up with a local microbrewery or serve a signature cocktail.

Here’s another option along those same lines: a wedding punch. A wedding punch isn’t just for a vintage wedding with white gloves and hats; you can also find great modern options for contemporary tastes.

Did you see the recent episode of Worst Cooks in America where the contestants had to feed a pack of hungry bikers? Show hosts Bobby Flay and Anne Burrell brought their cooking-challenged challengers to Brooklyn to duke it out at the East River Bar.

The contestants served up some grilled figs and chicken wings, and the production crew served up some biker-worthy wall flair in the form of hubcaps and skulls. But last year, my littlest brother and his bride held their wedding reception at that bar, and I can tell you the place cleans up real nice.